Instagram to let Zuckerberg's tampered video stay on app

Wed,12 Jun 2019 04:54:34 PM

San Francisco, June 12 (IANS): Facebook-owned photo-messaging app Instagram is investigating a tampered viral video of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but has decided to let the video stay on the platform regardless.

"We will treat this content the same way we treat all misinformation on Instagram. If third-party fact-checkers mark it as false, we will filter it from Instagram's recommendation surfaces like Explore and hashtag pages," The Verge quoted a Facebook spokesperson as saying on Tuesday.

The video, which emerged earlier this week, shows Zuckerberg sounding robotic while appearing to say, "Imagine this for a second: One man, with total control of billions of people's stolen data, all their secrets, their lives, their futures. I owe it all to Spectre. Spectre showed me that whoever controls the data, controls the future."

The original clip that has been doctored into the fake viral video comes from a seven-minute video of Zuckerberg describing Russian interference in Facebook in 2017, the report said.

In a similar case, a doctored video of US Speaker Nancy Pelosi showing her talk in a slurred speech went viral on Facebook.

However, relying on fact-checkers that are part of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), the social networking site took over a day to investigate the video before it tackled its spread.

Usually, when any one of Facebook's fact-checking partners rates a post or video as false on the platform, it automatically triggers a change in how Facebook's algorithm handles that content.

The platform demotes the content and pulls it away from appearing frequently on the users' news feeds. Facebook also notifies the users who attempt to share or have shared the content of its falsehood.